Farm Fresh, Field Trips & Food Justice: Gleaners in Providence 🍊🍏🥦
Connecting with food justice leaders, gleaning fresh produce, exploring local culture, and building a stronger, more sustainable future, one harvest at a time.
Hello, fellow gleaners, growers, and food justice champions!
I’m heading east—from the Pacific Northwest to the Atlantic Coast—to connect with people driven by passion and purpose, turning excess into abundance and waste into nourishment.
The destination? Providence, Rhode Island, is a community that nourishes people through food, history, and art. It’s where colonial homes, cutting-edge design, and food justice collide. Stories unfold over coffee milk, river walks, and farmers and gleaners working side by side. It’s where coffee cabinets ( slang for milkshakes) and gaggers hit the spot after a late night, and where the flavors of old-school diners, fresh seafood, and local farms tell the story of a place.
But this journey isn’t just about travel. It’s where the International Gleaning Symposium brings together gleaners, volunteers, and food justice warriors. It’s about rolling up sleeves, learning from the hands in the fields, and seeing firsthand how communities reclaim what’s left behind. Providence’s streets, farms, and markets have stories to tell, and I plan to listen and share them with you.
Let’s glean. Let’s grow. Let’s go!
A Hub for Local Food ☕🌶️🍦
The Symposium is hosted by Hope’s Harvest at Farm Fresh Rhode Island, where local food meets community power.
It all started with a question: Where can I find local apples? A college student’s curiosity grew into a movement—a thriving food hub and nonprofit dedicated to connecting farmers with the people who need their harvest most.
More than a food hub, a place where community, sustainability, and justice grow together.
🍬 Anchor Toffee – Handcrafted, melt-in-your-mouth confections
🍏 Harvest Kitchen – Fresh, rescued food turned into delicious preserves
☕ New Harvest Coffee – Cozy café vibes for coffee and conversation
🍺 Providence Brewing Co. – Local craft beers with Rhode Island character
🌶️ Rhed’s Hot Sauce – Small-batch heat packed with bold flavors
🚜 Red Tomato – A nonprofit food hub supporting sustainable farming
💐 Robin Hollow Flowers – Award-winning fresh blooms and floral magic
🌮 Tallulah’s Taqueria – Authentic Chicano street food
🍦 Wright’s Creamery – Cow-to-cone ice cream
Gathering, Growing & Gleaning 🌾 📖 🎤
Providence sets the stage, but people make a movement. Over three days, gleaners, storytellers, and food justice advocates came together to share knowledge, swap stories, and tackle the biggest challenges in food rescue. Mornings buzzed with coffee-fueled networking, afternoons brought hands-on farm work, and evenings blended pizza, veggie derby racing, and explorations of Providence’s historic streets.
But this symposium was more than just conversations; it was learning by doing. Attendees pulled on gloves for gleaning at Urban Edge Farm, crafted narratives in digital storytelling workshops, and turned fruit and veggie produce into race cars in a lighthearted celebration of creativity. Between visits to museums, markets, and riverside trails, we built connections that will strengthen the food security movement far beyond this gathering.
Small Group Outings 🍽️🎨🥕🌾 🥦🚜🍎
Providence is a place to be explored, so we gather into small groups to experience culture, food, and connection. From dinner at Plant City, wandering through the RISD Museum, sailing under moonlit bridges on a gondola ride, or rolling up sleeves in a pickling workshop, every experience brought us together. From ghost tours and arcade nights to tacos, craft brews, and cereal milk ice cream, the city, the movement, and each other.
Waste Not, Want Not: A Food Rescue Road Trip🚜🥕🤝
From fields to food banks, farms to city streets, this journey is about more than gleaning—it’s about community, resilience, and sharing abundance. Along the way, I met growers, volunteers, and locals who prove that food justice isn’t just an idea, it’s a way of life.
Providence reinforced the truth: less waste, more nourishment, deeper connection. The mission doesn’t end here—it grows. Every farm, every pantry, every table.